City public high schools down nearly 500 students

All but four of Hamilton’s 15 public high schools have seen a drop in enrolment from a year ago, although the decline is slightly less than projected.

Figures presented to trustees this week show there were 14,418 secondary students as of the end of October — down nearly 500 from the year before.

Only Nora Henderson, Sherwood, Saltfleet and Glendale saw increases. Sherwood, which is in the second year of phasing in a French immersion program, had the biggest gain at 58 students, raising its enrolment to 1,070.

Glendale had 45 more students, Henderson 27 and Saltfleet nine.

Those seeing the biggest enrolment drops included Westdale, Dundas Valley and Sir Allan MacNab, which were down about 100 students each.

Dundas’s 927 students were on target with staff projections, but Westdale’s 1,295 enrolment exceeded expectations by 136 students, while MacNab had 34 fewer students than anticipated.

Treasurer Stacey Zucker said finance staff was “realistically conservative” in enrolment projections because they guide the board’s budget and teaching positions for the year.

“We are still actually looking at and discussing with the principals why some of these numbers are different, especially when the numbers are a little bit bigger,” she said.

The high school numbers are a marked change from those for elementary schools, which took in 1,097 more students than projected this fall, an increase attributed to Syrian newcomers and the end of city daycare subsidies.